“I have an idea for a book, but where should I start?”
I hear this a lot from beginning writers and I understand how difficult it can be sometimes to just put words on paper.
The short answer is, you can start anywhere, which is part of the problem. With so many choices, how do we choose the one right spot?
Here is a better answer: Start where your passion and your process take you.
When writing fiction, I always start with character. Other authors start with plot, and yet others with a concept or an idea. No starting point is wrong.
Wait. Let me rephrase that.
The only wrong starting point is no starting point. In other words, there is no wrong place to start, but in order to write, you must start somewhere.
MY APPROACH
As someone who starts with character, I have a tendency to write my way into story, often discovering who my characters are along the way.
By “discovering” who my characters are, their wants and needs, I find the story, the plot points that will work together with the character’s goals and needs to create the journey they must undertake to achieve their goals.
This means that sometimes, what I thought was chapter three ends up being chapter one and what I thought was chapter one ends up being pulled from the story. But, as I tell other writers, no written word s wasted.
Just because the reader doesn’t need chapter one, doesn’t mean I didn’t need to write it.
Once I have an idea of who my main character is, I flesh them out. Go beyond their wants and dig into their needs, their strengths and flaws and misbeliefs.
Then I develop the antagonist and the remaining key cast members, developing them as well. I use a number of tools that I have adopted and developed over time to identify and house their attributes, their beliefs and world views. Then I find ways to tweak them to add conflict and tension into the story. Even allies don’t see eye to eye all the time! And when two characters want the same thing but insist on totally different approaches to achieving their goals? That is some sweet, sweet conflict.
I work with so many writers who struggled with fleshing out their characters, I created an online course to help them. You can find it here.
Then I move onto plotting tools for mapping out the journey. There are as many tools as writing styles for dev eloping plot. I am a big fan of the Inside Outline, which is a tool developed by Author Accelerator Founder and CEO, Jennie Nash, and one of the tools I use to coach writers in the developmental stages of a book.
I especially like the way the Inside Outline creates space for both the external and internal character journey. For me, stories that balance character/ internal and plot/external are the most satisfying.
YOU DO YOU: PROCESS IS PERSONAL
When I talk to other writers about this, especially those who are just starting out on their writing journeys, I always point out that we all have a process and that each writer’s process may be different, but every one’s is valid. Process is personal.
My own process tends to morph and seems not only to depend on the book I am writing, but on the character whose story I am telling. But I don’t let that changing process bother me. As long as I am writing, I will at some point have the words on paper that I need in order to mold and shape and polish the final story into something worthy of my readers.
But, in order to get those words on paper, I have to start somewhere. Beginning. Middle. End. Character description. Plot outline. Short scenes. Snippet of dialogue. The question, “what if?” A single emotion. A taste. A smell. Anywhere. Just so long as it gets words on page.
WRITING IS REWRITING.
We are not ancient Egyptians. Our words are not carved in stone. As writers, our work is flexible and malleable, less like marble to be chipped away, more like clay that can be reshaped and refined over and over until we get it where we want it. Revision is a powerful tool, allowing us to take the ugliest lump of clay and shape it into a powerful work of art.
In reality, writing is all about the final execution. Where we start is a matter of process and taste.
But, in order to finish, we must first start.
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